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Linux Compatibility Available for NetBSD PowerPC Ports

Posted by michael on from the but-will-it-run-Word? dept.

Emmanuel Dreyfus writes "The Linux compatibility feature has been enabled on NetBSD PowerPC ports (macppc, prep, bebox, ofppc, and amigappc). This means it is now possible to run Linux binaries such as Netscape Communicator on these ports. More information is available at the NetBSD web site."

1 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The real question... by kkenn · · Score: 4

    As bad as Netscape is, it's maintained a lot better for Linux than it is for other UNIX platforms (at least on i386).

    You also seem to misunderstand the idea of Linux binary compatability -- it's not "emulation", the binaries run *natively*. The BSD kernel reconfigures itself to appear like a Linux kernel to the Linux binaries, and everything runs just as if it was on a Linux machine, on the bare hardware. Therefore Linux binaries run at full-speed, just like native BSD binaries. It's very cool - in fact, I'm typing this as we speak in a Linux mozilla daily build on my FreeBSD box.

    There's a good entry in the FreeBSD handbook about this if you're interested in more details.